Connecting IPv6 capable Bluetooth Low Energy sensors with the Internet of Things

Johanna Nieminen (Nokia), Future Internet SHOK preconference 30.05.2012

IoT Taxonomy

Communication

Identification

Localization and Tracking

Security

Sensors

Actuators

Data Management

Devices

Internet of

Things

RFID

ZigBee 802.5.4 Bluetooth

Infrared Positioning

Temperature

Sensing

Reader

Schema

Representation Privacy

Message security

Authentication/ Authorization

RFID Tag

Embedded Mobile Constrained

device with radio

Mobile Phone

RFID

GPS

Biometry

Video

XML/EXI/JSON

Research challenges • Billions of sensors and actuators will be deployed in the

next few years • An emerging trend is to connect sensors with the Internet of

Things (IoT) − Digitalization of the physical world − Technology disruption

Internet

(IPv4 & IPv6)

Cellular (IPv6)

Low Power LAN (IPv6)

WiFi (IPv6)

Technology: IoT- Three views •  The IETF/Internet view

•  We should enable “constrained” nodes to connect to the Internet, and have low-overhead application, transport, security and auto-config protocols for them.

•  Otherwise it is the good old Internet, and apps are what app developers do. IP over everything and everything over IP. Emphasis on web concepts such as URIs, RESTful operations.

•  The M2M/cellular view •  Cellular networks should serve efficiently the increased M2M deployment,

using IP or non-IP (SMS) methods. Focus on access-operator centric deployments. Internet use cases supported as a side effect, though.

•  A generic “service layer” for constrained nodes is needed covering addressing, security, device management etc. IP is the baseline, but focus on higher layers.

•  The low-power radio view •  Each low-power radio should include its own protocol stack and

application profiles to communicate within a “subnet”. IP is extra overhead. Internet/cloud use cases are important, But data can be conveyed to Internet by applying gateways.

•  This is a valid approach e.g. for BT-LE with a smartphone as a gateway.

Networking and connectivity technologies

APPLICATION

SESSION/ TRANSPORT/ REPRESENTATION

NETWORK

PHY/LINK

BT/BT-LE/ZIGBEE/SEP2.0 PROFILES, CoAP/REST APIs

CoAP, SoAP/HTTP, XMPP, OMA

management protocol, GAP, GATT, TCP/UDP, XML, EXI, JSON

IPv4/IPv6, 6LoWpan technologies (IPv6 header compression, routing, neighbor discovery, address autoconfiguration)

Bluetooth variants, ZigBee, Z-Wave, ANT, NFC, 802.11ah, WiFi Low Power (WiFi Direct), Cellular radios, Google

proprietary low power radio, UWB

Bluetooth Low Energy use-cases

• Bluetooth Low Energy (BT-LE) is expected to appear in billions of devices and sensors in the next few years

• BT-LE can be implemented in several types of devices − accessories such as wrist units, key fobs, monitoring sensors,

wearable sensors and programmable actuators − home gateways and mobile devices

• Today, BT-LE enabled sensors typically communicate locally with a central node − applications such as wireless audio and use of a mobile device

in a hands-free mode • Connecting BT-LE sensors to the Internet will

− enable new types of use-cases and applications − enhance the operation of existing use-cases

Technical solutions • 6LoWPAN standard describes how to run IPv6 over IEEE

802.15.4 family radios in a power efficient way − at the moment there is no specification on how to run IP/IPv6

over other constrained links such as BT-LE •  It is currently possible to connect BT-LE sensors with the

Internet using protocol translation in the mobile device acting as a gateway − However, solutions are application and operating system

specific – do not scale and do not enable open web services creation environment for sensor application developers

• The most flexible approach would be to use IP for end-to-end communication between the sensors and a server − IPv6 would be the ideal protocol due to the large address

space it provides.

Our solution • We have designed a generic BT-LE <-> Cellular IP router

and a CoAP/HTTP proxy on top of it

L2

APP Data

CoAP

IP

BT-LE

APP Data

CoAP/HTTP

IP IP router

BT-LE

“BT-LE node” “Gateway” “Internet server”

L2

CoAP/HTTP proxy

Our solution • Key components of the solution include adapting 6LoWPAN

for BT-LE − differences in the header compression and fragmentation

functionality − BT-LE operates in a star topology, thus source and/or destination

IPv6 addresses can be elided in many cases based on known context − Fragmentation will be performed in the link layer, not in the

network layer • Additional technical issues include

− configuration, application protocol efficiency and security, context awareness as well as gateway operation

Proposed solution on Sensor

Resulting IP over BT-LE Ecosystem

Standardization

•  IPv6 over BT-LE IETF draft Working Group Last Call completed, moving the draft to IESG approval queue − RFC expected in a few months − Other related drafts prepared − Starting to promote the concept through IPSO

• Sensor Internet protocol FRD approved in BT-SIG BARB − Goal is to have BT-SIG stamp on the solution, and a fixed

channel ID reserved for IP traffic • Nokia prototype implementation completed, interoperability

implementations with another company already started

Prototype implementation: Internet connected heart-rate belt

Internet

Wi-­‐Fi  /  3G  /  GPRS

6LoWPAN  o

ver  BTLE

NOKIA  N9

CoAP  Client

HTTP  Server

CoAP  Server

Router End-­‐to-­‐end  IPv6  connection